We liked?

Packs just enough in to the 90 minute runtime to leave you wanting more but not short-changed

Not so much?

Still not much of an adventure game - more a free moving conversation adventure

Inventory system gets a little cumbersome

Final Fiendish Findings?

I’d have bet you good money that I’d never be saying this but Tales from the Borderlands is shaping up to be one of my favourite Telltale titles to date. You can just see how much effort has gone in to make this game appear unflinchingly funny and effortlessly stylish. And it takes an awful lot of effort and honing to make something look effortless!

You have to appreciate a game that can laugh at itself. Tales from the Borderlands: Atlas Mugged does just that straight out of the gate. The voice over kicks in as you start episode 2 and say “Yeah, yeah we know it’s been a long time coming….”.

Directly addressing “the internet’s” outcry that the second episode in this series has taken double the time it really should have Telltale show they’re not only aware of the disappointment fans might have been feeling at the large gap, but that their true target audience are pretty much Ok with it.

Atlas Mugged returns us to the tale being recited by company man Rhys and general scallywag outlaw Fiona to their captive as he/she trails then through the desserts of Pandora. Picking up straight after the events of the past episode the crew are desperately trying to figure out the location of a Vault to get one big score.

Tales from the Borderlands episode 2 doesn’t cover a huge amount of story. In fact the 90 minutes of the episode don’t really see you achieving all that much compared to the pace and progress of the first. What it does though is spend those 90 minutes weaving back and forth between action and character-defining dialogue. Oh and a truly horrific thing with an eyeball!

Yes this is the “getting to know you” episode and every Telltale series has one – usually the second in most cases. We get to know a little more about Rhys and Fiona but, more interestingly, we get to meet some new characters (some familiar from the original Borderlands titles) and flesh-out some of the existing ones.

The dialogue is snappy for the most part and at times incredibly amusing. Lots of game and movie references thrown in for good measure along with another astoundingly well produced intro and credit sequence.

The games look is still incredibly well suited to the Telltale Tool and runs smoothly for the most part – at one stage I did have a chunk of hilltop protruding from Loader Bot’s head as it flew along! Voice work is just superb from start to finish with key players like Nolan North, Troy Baker and Laura Bailey. A solid and amusing script, good character development and all delivered to the highest possible standard. Despite Handsome Jack being a little irritating in Borderlands 2 he’s strangely compelling and offers some real scene-stealing moments.

The game is a little cumbersome in the inventory department though. It’s something that didn’t really bother me in the first outing as it required little use, but here it does need accessing a little more and it can be a little fiddly. The over-riding thought that will dog you throughout Atlas Mugged is “Who exactly do I trust here?”. It starts off as a small niggling thought but by then end of the episode it’s front and centre forcing you to make a choice.

Final Thoughts

Tales from the Borderlands: Atlas Mugged continues the amazingly strong start that Zero Sum started. Yes it’s been longer coming than it should have been, but it certainly was worth the wait.

More character building that story progression this time around but what they do with the characters is compelling and worth your investment both in time and financially speaking.

I’d have bet you good money that I’d never be saying this but Tales from the Borderlands is shaping up to be one of my favourite Telltale titles to date. You can just see how much effort has gone in to make this game appear unflinchingly funny and effortlessly stylish. And it takes an awful lot of effort and honing to make something look effortless!

A great cliff hanger has left me even more desperate for the next episode – let’s just hope it’s less of a wait this time.

Zeth

Zeth is our EU ninja and Editor in Chief. He's been writing about video games since 2008 when he started on BrutalGamer. He's pretty old and has been a gamer since he played Space Invaders as a young boy in the 80's. His genre tastes lean towards platformers, point-and-click adventure, action-adventure and shooters but he'll turn his hand to anything.

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